A few months back, I offered to lay off of the criticism, if I saw positive steps taken to address the housing crisis in Southern Humboldt. I offered bonus points if it happened before annual influx of trimmigrants. It didn’t. 2016 was a brutal year for people out on the streets in Southern Humboldt. Several people died in makeshift encampments last year, under suspicious circumstances, and a few elderly homeless people were badly beaten on the streets of Garberville over this past Summer and Fall. However, now that Winter weather has arrived, Peg Anderson and Yashi Hoffman have organized a severe weather shelter for people with nowhere warm to be on the coldest nights of the year.

Peg and Yashi brought together a coalition of people who care, including the Presbyterian Church in Garberville, the Baptist Church in Redway, David Ordonez a big-hearted guy I know from the SHARC club, and I don’t know how many other volunteers, to make it happen. Separately, none of them could do it all, but when Peg and Yashi got them all together, they were able to make it happen. Without them, we would have no emergency shelter at all in Southern Humboldt.

They had to start from scratch, since the Veterans Hall, Sohum’s traditional severe weather shelter, is out of commission due to mold, and Paul Encimer, the guy who organized the shelter at the Veteran’s Hall for many years, was just evicted himself, from his bookstore at the North end of Garberville. Peg and Yashi bring an entirely different energy to the situation, that people can feel in their hearts, and in their stomachs. Peg and Yashi have literally fed this community for two generations, through Chautauqua, the natural foods grocery store they ran, until recently turning it over to the next generation.

Peg and Yashi have certainly earned whatever leisure time their semi-retirement allows them, and no one forced them to step up to the plate here. In fact, I’ll bet a lot of people discouraged them from even trying, but they decided to do it anyway, and they did it together. That’s cool. Actually, that’s love, but love is cool with me, and a lot of people are feeling that love, on these cold nights, like we’ve had over the past week or so. Be sure to thank Peg and Yashi for that, and for any heart-warming feelings you get from this uncharacteristically positive post.

I also want to mention a very charming group of young people, including Jasmine Rene Stafslein, Shakti and their friends, who prepared care packages for people on the street, and distributed them over the holidays. That was a very thoughtful gesture, that I’m sure was very much appreciated. They made the effort to wear bright colors and to be friendly and cheerful as well. I think that’s really love too. Shakti even invited me to join them.

I hate to see my friends struggle so hard to survive, and I help when I can, but I’m much more interested in punishing the middle-class for their smug, indifference, their hostility towards the poor, and their greed. That’s where the juice is. We”ll run out of planet long before I run out of material on that front, which is why the work I do here matters. The middle-class must be stopped.

Too many heart-warming stories like this, about good people helping one another, would kill this column, and undermine what I’m trying to do here. When middle-class people start treating poor and working-class people like human beings, they make my job as a social critic more difficult, and less necessary. It’s simple really. My criticisms only sting because they are true. The less true you make them, the less they sting. The less they sting, the less anyone notices, and the sooner I have to find something else to write about.

On the other hand, people need to see an example of what good people are like once in a while. So here you have a couple. Do you want to see more? If you, or someone you know, is doing something to bring this community together, to make it more livable for working people, and more survivable for the poor and vulnerable, let me know, and I’ll write about it.

Go ahead. Try to put me out of work. Just be forewarned that stuff you do to help your own kids, doesn’t count. They’re your responsibility anyway. Also, stuff you do that protects, or raises your property values, doesn’t count either. I don’t want to hear about your parks or your schools or your goddamn hospital. I only want to hear about things that people do, out of the kindness of their hearts, to make life easier, and better for the people who have it the hardest in this community. In the meantime, I have plenty else to write about in 2017.

It’s only a campaign if you stick with it till the bitter end, we must defeat the forces of greed and corruption in Humboldt County, and we must defeat Measure Z. Unfortunately, this is an uphill climb. I really don’t know how to gauge the electorate, but from the people I’ve talked to about the issue, public opinion ranges from ignorance to stupidity.

The most common response I heard from people was: “What is Measure Z?” That’s just simple ignorance. I understand that. I can explain Measure Z to them, no problem, and then they can make up their own mind, but that takes work, and it costs money which I don’t have.

Measure Z is essentially a one-half of one percent increase in the cost of almost everything for everyone in Humboldt County. Measure Z is the rich stealing from the poor. Measure Z is the same greedy bastards who took over our Board of Supervisors, reaching deep into the pockets of the working people of Humboldt County. Measure Z makes you pay for big subsidies to ranchers and developers, and allows them to profit from your hard work.

There’s been almost no press about this issue, except the blandest pile of BS you ever heard from our local Supervisor, and another from someone in the Sheriff’s Dept. Everyone in the county got a mailer about Measure Z, paid for by the taxpayers. The mailer was equally bland, and completely unbalanced.

Measure Z proponents are hoping for rain on election day, and a poor turnout. They don’t want Humboldt County working people to even bother to vote. They know that the greedy bastards looking for a free ride on your shoulders will make it to the polls, rain or shine. We need to GET OUT THE VOTE on November 4. Measure Z is going to bite you in the wallet if you don’t wake up now and beat it at the ballot-box. Please vote No on Measure Z.

The stupidity is a lot harder to deal with. Stupid land owners say things like (excerpted from a fb exchange):

“ I am a property owner and a landlord. I have no problem with increased taxes, but county government is for all of us from law enforcement, public records, the library, our courts, public health to public welfare. I agree we may well have a planning problem with developers, but I don’t see ranchers and farmers as greedy–they provide us with our food. Ranchers and farmers have been heavily impacted by the recent drought. Poor people and the homeless need government services–before I retired I was on the homeless coalition. There are those who care about the poor who work in county government. I would be very careful pitting people against each other. We all need to work together to make our area a better place to live. Paying property taxes is a way to make the lives of the less fortunate better. Proposition 13 that decreased county property taxes heavily impacted the poor by decreasing government services.”

What a crock of Bullshit! People like this don’t think they are being greedy, because greed is the water they swim in. Calling them “greedy” is like calling a fish “wet.” 90% of what county government does, is guarantee the property rights of property owners. Courts, law-enforcement, public records primarily serve these ends. There may be people who care about the poor who work in county government, but that’s not what they get paid to do. They get paid to implement policies that have been created to protect property owners from the poor.

Ranchers and farmers don’t “provide us with food,” unless we buy it from them, at a price they agree to. Measure Z forces poor and homeless people to subsidize these farmers and ranchers, even though they have no land themselves, and get no food at all in return. Those alleged “property rights” amount to nothing more than an expensive and violent occupation of stolen land by vicious genocidal invaders.

I agree that we all need to work together to make this area a better place to live, but to do that, we need to find homes for the more than 2,000 people who have no place to live in Humboldt County. Instead, Measure Z makes those homeless Humboldters pay for services to rich, stupid and greedy land owners, heirs to the most violent, racist and genocidal empire to ever despoil the face of God’s green Earth.

That’s the kind of greed and stupidity we’re up against folks. Measure Z supporters are “Marie Antoinette” stupid, and there’s only one cure for that kind of stupidity.

Here’s some more helpful information to help you make up your mind about Measure Z:

The North Coast Journal usually only accepts letters to the editor about topics they cover in the magazine, and they haven’t even mentioned Measure Z. In this last month before the election they have made space for letters about political issues, but limited the length of these letters to to 150 words. 150 words is barely longer than a bumper sticker for Christs sake. Anyway, here’s mine.

Dear Editor,
Measure Z, the proposed county-wide sales tax will raise the price of basic necessities like shoes, clothes and toiletries, as well as most other things, for everyone in Humboldt County. This new tax will most severely impact Humboldt County’s students, working people, low-income families, disabled people and seniors living on fixed incomes. It is particularly unfair to fund county government with a sales tax because the primary purpose of county government is to secure the property rights of property owners. If you own property, county government works for you, whether you live here or not. If you don’t own property, county government are the people who evict you from your home. If Measure Z passes, Humboldt county’s low-income residents will begin paying their landlord’s tax bill. Measure Z is a cynical ploy to take advantage of the county’s most vulnerable. Please, VOTE NO on Measure Z.

Sincerely, John Hardin

Continuing my campaign to sink Measure Z I present the text to an “All Sides Now,” a nightly audio editorial feature on KMUD, that I submitted regarding Measure Z. Read it now or save yourself the trouble of interpreting all of those English language characters and listen to it tonight, Monday, October 20 at 6:30 after the evening news, instead.

This is John Hardin for All Sides Now,

Measure Z, if it passes would establish a brand new county-wide sales tax, on top of the already high seven-and-a-half percent state sales tax, and in addition to any municipal sales tax, such as the one up for reconsideration in Eureka. If Measure Z passes, it will make almost everything in Humboldt County, more expensive, including basic necessities like shoes, clothes and toiletries.

Measure Z will most severely impact Humboldt County’s young people and students, low-income working families, single mothers, disabled people, retirees and others living on a fixed income. In other words, Measure Z hurts the people who can afford it the least.

Who benefits from Measure Z? Greedy developers, rich ranchers and large estate owners expect to reap a windfall of taxpayer subsidies from Measure Z funds. If Measure Z passes, you will pay for taxbreaks on new McMansion developments, every time you buy toilet paper. If Measure Z passes, you will have to pay for subsidized pest control for ranchers, through Wildlife Services, a notoriously inhumane agency of the USDA that needlessly kills millions of wild animals every year, every time you buy cruelty-free cosmetics in Humboldt County.

Measure Z is a cynical plan, hatched by Humboldt County’s richest and greediest, to foist the burden of county government on to the backs of people who can afford it the least, while they insure that the benefits of county government remain firmly within their grasp.

Measure Z steals from the poor and gives to the rich. We must stop Measure Z now, before it is too late. Please, vote NO on Measure Z.

What People Say:

If you haven't read john hardin's blog before, prepare to be shocked. I always am. (I can't help but enjoy it though...at least when I'm not slapping my hands on my computer desk and yelling at him.) He's sort of a local Jon Stewart only his writing hurts more because it is so close to people and places I love. Kym Kemp
...about, On The Money, The Collapsing Middle Class
... I think he really nails it, the middle class is devolving back into the working class. Pretty brilliant, IMO. Juliet Buck, Vermont Commons http://www.vtcommons.org/blog/middle-class-or-first-world-subsistence
BLOGS WE WATCH: John Hardin’s humorous, inappropriate, and sometimes antisocial SoHum blog is a one-of-a-kind feast or famine breadline banquet telling it like it is—or at least how it is through Mr. Hardin’s uniquely original point of view with some off-the-wall poetic licensing and colorful pics tossed in for good measure. For example, how it all went from this to that and how it all came about like the hokey pokey with your right foot out. You get the idea. Caution: this isn’t for everybody, especially those without a bawdy, bawdry, and tacky sense of humor. You know who you are. We liked it. (From the Humboldt Sentinel http://humboldtsentinel.com/2011/12/16/weekly-roundup-for-december-16-2011/)